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Augusto Flores: From Buenos Aires to New York

04-23-2014, 11:58 AM

I picked up a 1968 history of Scouting aimed toward kids, Story of the Boy Scouts by Wyatt Blassingame, the other day, and one of the stories in the book is that of scout Augusto Flores and 4 friends who decided to hike from Buenos Aires to New York in 1926, ~18,000 miles.
Along the way, 1 was snakebitten and died, and the other 3 were stopped by hospitalization. They were lost a couple times in deserts and jungles, taken captive by revolutionaries, and robbed by bandits. Augusto carried on and arrived in New York in 1928. He published a book in 1929 and 1931, but I can't find anything on him more recent than that. He's certainly dead, he'd be 104 today.

"... AlftES, July 12. W— Juna Veletta, an Argentlnan, and AugustoFlores, a Peruvian, are beginning today a pedestrain trip from Buenos Aires lo New York, under sponsorship of the Admiral Brown Club. The hikers..."

One of them is called Fliver to Cambodia; it is about 3 French scouts that drove a Model T from France to the Mediterranean and then eventually through ferries, mules, and taking and putting the car back together, ended up in Cambodia by route of the Himalayas. Another, is Hobnails and Heather, a story of U.S. Eagles on a month long hike through Scotland one summer. These stories really are great, but most would not likely occur today with the over protective attitudes so common. They also were done by older teens and even some in the early twenties that were involved still.